Friday, March 12, 2010

After years of fighting in court, lawyers representing New York City, construction companies and more than 10,000 ground zero rescue and recovery workers have agreed to a settlement that could pay up to $657.5 million to responders sickened by dust from the destroyed World Trade Center.

The settlement was announced Thursday evening by the WTC Captive Insurance Co., a special entity established to indemnify the city and its contractors against potential legal action as they moved to clean up the site after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The deal, which still must be approved by a judge and the workers themselves, would make the city and other companies represented by the insurer liable for a minimum of $575 million, with more money available to the sick if certain conditions are met. Most if not all of the money would come out of a $1 billion grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg called the settlement "a fair and reasonable resolution to a complex set of circumstances."

Marc Bern, a senior partner with the law firm Worby, Groner, Edelman & Napoli, Bern LLP, which negotiated the deal, said it was "a good settlement."

Workers who wish to participate in the settlement would need to prove they had been at the World Trade Center site or other facilities that handled debris. They also would have to turn over medical records and provide other information aimed at weeding out fraudulent or dubious claims.

For the settlement to be enforced, 95 percent of the workers would need to agree to be bound by its terms.

The agreement comes with just two months to go until the first trials are to begin in the case. Thousands of police officers, firefighters and construction workers who put in time at the 16-acre site in lower Manhattan had filed lawsuits against the city, claiming it sent them to ground zero without proper protective equipment.

Many of those workers now claim to have fallen ill. A majority complained of a respiratory problem similar to asthma, but the suits also sought damages for hundreds of other types of ailments, including cancer.

Lawyers for the city claimed it did its best to get respiratory equipment to everyone who needed it. They also had challenged some of the claims as based on the thinnest of medical evidence, noting that thousands of the people suing suffered from conditions common in the general population or from no illness at all.

Under the settlement, the task of deciding what each worker will be paid will fall to a neutral third party, to be picked by the two sides. Lawyers for the plaintiffs have previously said they favor Kenneth Feinberg, the special master who determined payouts from the federal fund set up to compensate victims of the terror attacks.

Payments will be based on a system that ranks each illness by severity and factors in potential exposure to the dust. Some workers are likely to receive payments of only a few thousand dollars. Others could be in line to get more than $1 million, depending on their injuries. A special insurance fund will be set up to cover workers who develop cancer in the future.

Lawyer Andrew Carboy, who represented a group of firefighters in the case, said he would urge them to accept the deal.

Both sides in the case were scheduled to appear Friday afternoon before the federal judge handling the litigation, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who previously had said he favored a settlement but planned to analyze it carefully to make sure it was fair.

The settlement would mean a postponement or cancellation of the trials tentatively scheduled to begin in May. Some of the cases scheduled to be heard first included that of a firefighter who died of throat cancer and another who needed a lung transplant, as well as workers with less serious ailments, including a Consolidated Edison utility company employee with limited exposure to the debris pile and no current serious illness.

The $1 billion fund created by Congress to help insure the city has been depleted somewhat by the long legal battle in the case, with the bill so far running to more than $200 million.

The Worby, Groner, Edelman & Napoli, Bern law partnership, which represents 9,000 of the plaintiffs, is expected to take as much as a third or more of the total settlement in legal fees, based on contingency agreements it signed with each client.

Regular and Featured Topics

360 Hot Topics - News of the strange, bizarre, unknown or just plain weird with links for further reading. Subjects include every topic on our masthead.

360 In-Depth - Our award-winning series of reports providing a deeper look into the stories behind the headlines, offering analysis and educated opinion.

360 News & Comment: An Op/Ed feature focusing on a news topic that begs an opinion.

360 News Briefs - An early morning news feature profiling the latest news. Great with coffee!

360 OverNight - A night-time feature while most of the western hemisphere is sleeping. Great for night owls and our friends on the other side of the world.

360 Perspective/360 Analysis - For stories too short to be an In-Depth feature; an exposé that reports hourly, daily or weekly on news items not covered or expanded on by the media.

360 Sunday - An all-day Sunday Feature including 360 Sunday Extra, People and Stories of Faith and Hope, selected religious and spiritual news from around the world, plus the latest news and headlines.

360 Vent - The return of a site favorite - no one person, group or entity escapes our venting. Funny but not always pleasant, but then again, sometimes the truth can be painful.

Bits and Pieces - A news summary of regional and world interest.

Flashback - A fond glance at the music and television of the 70s, 80s, 90s & early millenium years, with special features going back to the 30s and 40s.

Left-Wing Watch - A breakdown of active socialism in America, Obama and his supporters, the people behind the scenes, the hows and whys of their policies that derail America.

Notes From All Over - A news break down that features several stories of interest: Georgia, US & World

The Quickening - A series of reports based on the belief that events in this country and around the world seem to be accelerating toward a point where great change is going to occur; events that will dramatically and radically alter life as we know it today.

The World Tonight - A world news round-up at the end of selected weekdays.

This American Life - A synopsis from across the nation on the lighter side of the news.